Ex-Governor, Suing Over Book, Is Back in Minnesota’s Spotlight

Gov. Jesse Ventura in St. Paul on Tuesday, the first day of jury selection in his defamation lawsuit against the estate of Chris Kyle, who wrote the book “American Sniper.”

Elizabeth Flores / The Star Tribune, via Associated Press

By MONICA DAVEY

July 8, 2014

ST. PAUL — Jesse Ventura, the blunt-talking former governor with the outsize reputation, has always been hard to define. The same man who upended Minnesota’s political establishment more than a decade ago with a third-party candidacy was once better known as a professional wrestler who wore a feather boa and went by the nickname “The Body.” He has been an author, a member of a special unit of the Navy and a television host.

Now he is a plaintiff in a defamation suit in which jurors in a federal courtroom here must decide whether his reputation was harmed by a best-selling book by a former member of the Navy SEALs.

Mr. Ventura, 62, who on Tuesday sat quietly at the plaintiff’s table in a sedate gray suit, his hair in a modest silver ponytail, has sued the estate of Chris Kyle, the former SEALs member, who alluded to Mr. Ventura in his book, “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.”

The case is likely to test the higher legal standard a public figure must meet to prove defamation. The proceeding is also complicated by Mr. Kyle’s death in a shooting in Texas in 2013, about a year after the suit was filed. The death left Mr. Kyle’s widow, Taya, as the defendant on behalf of his estate. And in a state where Mr. Ventura’s legacy is still a matter of debate, the trial is also returning the former governor, who had largely faded from the political landscape, to the spotlight.

In a way, the trial here comes down to a single night. Deep into Mr. Kyle’s book, he described a confrontation on Oct. 12, 2006, at a California bar where Mr. Kyle and his friends were mourning the death of a fellow SEALs member. There, Mr. Kyle said, he argued with a man — a veteran and celebrity who, he said, criticized the nation’s policy in Iraq and suggested that the Navy SEALs “deserve” to lose a few people. Mr. Kyle wrote that he punched the man. While Mr. Kyle called the man only “Scruff Face” in his book, he later confirmed during interviews about the book that Mr. Ventura had been the subject of the passages.

But Mr. Ventura’s lawyer, David B. Olsen, said that no such confrontation had occurred, and that Mr. Ventura had since been “publicly ridiculed and publicly humiliated” within the military ranks for comments that he never made, nor would have made. “There was no incident,” Mr. Olsen said. “There was no altercation.”

Job offers for Mr. Ventura promptly trailed off, Mr. Olsen said, even as talk about the episode helped sell Mr. Kyle’s book. A movie is in the works, the lawyer said, to be directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper as Mr. Kyle.

John Borger, a lawyer for Ms. Kyle, said jurors must not only weigh evidence of what happened that night, but also consider what Mr. Kyle believed had occurred when he wrote his book. Legal experts say Mr. Ventura’s lawyers will have to show actual malice — that Mr. Kyle knew, for instance, that what he wrote was false — to meet the higher legal standard in such cases involving public figures. And Mr. Borger expressed doubt that Mr. Kyle’s book had gained sales because of a few pages about Mr. Ventura, or that Mr. Ventura’s work opportunities had slipped because of its contents, suggesting instead that the former governor’s popularity had fallen off on its own.

Along the streets here, the memories of Mr. Ventura’s time as governor, from 1999 to 2003, are distinctly mixed. Fans cite his leadership as a reminder to traditional political parties that plain-speaking, ordinary people in third parties can win elections, as he did when he stunned the state by seizing 37 percent of the vote against two formidable candidates, a Democrat and a Republican. Some praised his push for light rail and tax cuts (and remembered getting what they called Jesse checks) as evidence of his policy heft.

His critics recalled louder moments — when he clashed with reporters and announced that he wanted them to wear “Official Jackal” badges. “He built a really high-quality cabinet around him,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, “but you always felt like you were on a late-night TV show.”

Mr. Ventura is expected to testify during the trial, which is likely to last several weeks, though he was largely silent on Tuesday. At one point, a would-be juror told the judge that, yes, he knew of Mr. Ventura, and had in fact read Mr. Ventura’s book, “I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed.” The man, who was later dismissed from the jury pool, explained that “I’m a wrestling fan,” drawing a smile from Mr. Ventura.